Who was Ken Reid? The Bairnsdale man, the Vietnam veteran, the father

Sitting on a mantlepiece in a Melbourne suburban home is a photo of Ken Reid. Ken was a Vietnam veteran, a Bairnsdale man who served in the 17th construction squadron. Up until this year, this man was a mystery, even to his son.

Ken was one of the thousands of Australian soldiers who served in Vietnam and returned home to face a society not so accepting of their service.

Darren, Ken's son, grew up in a household where the war was never talked about.

"He didn't go to RSLs or marches so it wasn't even a part of our life," Darren says.

The resemblance between the faces of Darren and Ken is as close as a father and son could be and yet Darren says he didn't know his father.

"I grew up thinking he should never have been a father," Darren says.

He says he didn't understand his father and from the age of 16 he didn't talk to him.

When Darren was 21, his father passed away.

It wasn't until his fiance, Ree Pritchard, urged him to, that he even thought about researching his father's service in Vietnam.

Together they started to read about the experience of veterans, their families and the effects of post traumatic stress disorder.

"I think there's something about us learning about his experience in Vietnam and other people's experiences in Vietnam that has given [Darren] a compassionate heart and some understanding to his father that he was never able to attain while he was alive," Ree says.

This year the couple discovered another piece of the puzzle in Ken's life.

They found a series of photos taken by Ken, of his time in Vietnam.

In the photos are machinery used to clear roads and uncover Viet Cong tunnels.

There are also photos of chance encounters with wildlife, a shy soldier standing by an entertainer and a giant Buddha statue.

"The first thought was that I was seeing through his eyes, the war, what he was looking at," Darren says.

"It's so amazing these photos haven't been seen for 40 years or longer and that maybe there's other adult children looking for their dads or uncles or brothers... Ken wasn't able to tell his story and that sort of harmed his family really and that Darren through his experience, he's able to share them. He's able to do for Ken what Ken couldn't do," Ree adds.

With Darren's blessing, the couple started to reach out to other Vietnam veterans.

Darren says a lot of the veterans they have spoken to, didn't realise they wanted to share their stories of war until they were much older, something Ken Reid never had the chance to do.

"I'm incredibly grateful for their generosity, they don't know me but because [Ken] went through what they went through and they understand, they're all fathers so they would like to think that if their children were asking about them, someone would come forward," he says.

Now Darren and Ree are going to meet with a group of veteran engineers from the Vietnam war on ANZAC day.

After the discovery of some photos of Ken Reid took of his service in the Vietnam War, his son Darren and his fiance Ree, search for more information about his service to try and learn more about the man himself.